This blog post by Dr. Sandy Burud originally appeared in Sloan Work and Family Blog, and was reposted at Georgetown Law Workplace Flexibility 2010.

No doubt there is a powerful trend toward workplace flexibility.  It is no longer a question of whether employers should make it possible, but how well they will do it.  As if to emphasize that point, regulators have made it clear that employers cannot discriminate against employees because they have family responsibilities.  They cannot, for example, hold people with child care or eldercare needs to stricter work schedules or pay people working part-time for family reasons less than others doing the same job on a full time basis.  

In 2007 the EEOC issued guidelines guarding against this discrimination.  Now, a number of key states have crafted legislation that would make it illegal. (New Jersey, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Montana, New York and California, and others).  This train is clearly moving.

It’s Charles Darwin’s birthday. The ‘survival of the fittest’ guy -- except, he didn’t actually say that. Darwin said survival is not about sheer strength. It’s about adaptation to your environment. Paying attention to clues, threats, information. Listening…with all your senses. Being open to changing the way you do everything, maybe even how you think of yourself. Are you a fish, or, since you grew legs, something else?

As we think about what we all need to get out of this economic and environmental mess we’re collectively in, let me share one person’s thoughts.  She says, “Let’s invest in our human infrastructure.”  What a great idea!  Riane Eisler is the author of books like The Chalice and The Blade that change the way we think and live and she has written a paper to the Obama Administration.  I invite you to read it, comment on it and pass it along. The Roadmap to a New Caring Economy